Moorhouse arrived at a run.
“What is going on here?” he shouted.
Duncan laughed.
“It seems someone does not want you leaving with the gold,” he said.
Moorhouse looked down at McLeod’s body and went white.
“You killed him?” Big Bill replied.
“No,” he said. “Duncan is right. There is someone else on this island with us.”
Moorhouse still looked suspicious. He stepped forward towards the chest.
The black figure reappeared in the doorway, standing, his legs apart, as if protecting the box. The man who stood there was even taller and broader than Big Bill, made even more imposing by his garb. He was clad head to toe in black polished metal and leather armour. The tall helmet rose into a peak above the lintel of the door, only dark slits showing for eye-holes. No part of the body was unprotected, from the banded combination of metal and leather around the torso reinforced by thick shoulder guards, to a long enameled apron hanging below his knees. Heavy shoes protected the feet and shin guards were tied from knee to ankle. Each piece of the main body armour consisted of a set of small iron plates lacquered to protect the material against rust and laced together by gleaming white cord.
A scabbard was slung over the shoulders and he held the weapon, a long straight sword, across his chest.
The figure didn’t speak. It didn’t have to. The intent was plain.
None of us are leaving here any time soon.
* * *
I can wait.
That is what I do.
The world is ruled by letting things take their course.
I will serve, and I will protect.
There is nothing more.
* * *
Even then Moorhouse still looked like he might step forward.
“What is it that you want,” the little man blustered. “If it is the gold, I will see that you get McLeod’s share.”
Duncan pulled Moorhouse away.
“He cares not for your gold,” Duncan said. “And neither do I. I will not stay here and be party to any more death.”
But when Duncan strode towards the door the black figure once again raised the sword.
Even I cannot pass.
Big Bill laughed bitterly.
“It seems we are all to share. Come. Let us at least get McLeod out of here.”
The black figure allowed Duncan and Bill to drag what was left of McLeod away. They left the arm where it was, the white hand still grabbing the handle of the chest, for neither of them wanted to touch it.
After they had stored the body in one of the empty rooms they went back for Geordie who was still lying insensate by the door.
“Let us get him to the fire,” Big Bill said. “At least we can keep him warm.”
Moorhouse was still staring at the black figure guarding the door. “You cannot keep us here,” he said. “We are on the King’s business.”
Duncan laughed.
“The King’s business is worth about as much as a shite in this place,” he said. He helped Big Bill drag Geordie away.
‘Where are you going?” Moorhouse called after them.
“Back to where it is warm,” Big Bill replied.
“But we need to get out of here,” Moorhouse wailed.
“After you,” Duncan said.
They left the little man at the entrance and half-carried, half-dragged Geordie to the hearth. Duncan stoked the fire and Big Bill got a pot of tea brewing.
“The Cap’n is right about one thing,” the big man said. “We do need to get out of here.”
Duncan nodded.
“It might well come down to a fecht with the man outside. I am not sure we can take him.”
Big Bill stared into the fire before nodding. “I have seen his like afore. They are Samurai—fearsome warriors, bound by duty. Our only chance will be to catch him off guard.”
I am not sure a man such as that is ever off guard.
They sat in silence, drinking tea and watching the flames.
Moorhouse joined them as they were on the second cup.
“He is still there,” he said. “He will not respond to entreaties. ‘Tis like talking to an excise man.”
Geordie woke soon after, and almost immediately started to wail like a babe. Big Bill managed to soothe him, but Duncan knew it was only a matter of time before the crying would start again.
We need a plan.
Duncan left the others and did a tour of the temple. Moorhouse had been right. The black figure still stood in the doorway, so still that he might be a statue. Duncan ignored him and surveyed the other rooms. The sight of poor McLeod’s ravaged body gave him pause, and he stood there for long minutes, saying a prayer for the man’s soul before moving on.
He found what he was looking for at the rear of the temple, on the far side from the entrance door. The wood back here was more rotted than at the front, and weak sunlight showed through holes where the rain had got in.
We can kick our way out of here with little trouble.
He went back to tell the others of the plan that was brewing in his mind.
Big Bill had got a fresh pot of rice and beans going in the cauldron, and the aroma filled the temple. Duncan laid out his plan while they waited.
Two of them would kick out the back wall, make an escape and search for help while the others kept the black man busy. Duncan already knew that, as the best swordsman, he would be one of the two to stay behind. The argument came when deciding who should stay with him.
Duncan wanted Big Bill beside him, but Moorhouse would have none of it.
“I need the big man with me,” he said.
The thought has never crossed his mind that he might be the one to stay.
Geordie surprised Duncan.
“I will fight by your side,” he said. “Although the very thought of it has me pishing my breeks. McLeod was my friend. I will see him avenged.”
Big Bill nodded.
“We have a plan then.”
* * *
An end is near.
When the student is ready, the master appears.
* * *
Duncan started counting in his head as he left the hearth.
When he got to a hundred he stepped into the entrance doorway and stood over the chest, trying to ignore the drying blood that had splashed and splattered around it.
The armoured figure raised its sword.
“Let us have at it then,” Duncan said and stepped forward. At almost the same instant he heard the loud splintering of wood from the other side of the temple.
The black figure sent his blade out in a quicksilver flicker that Duncan only just managed to parry as it was over his heart.
He stepped forward into a lunge that caught the other off guard, but the Samurai managed to weave to one side and the stroke cut a slice across the armour at his ribs instead of taking him through the heart. The Samurai stepped into the attack with renewed vigor so that Duncan was hard pressed to defend himself. The sound of clashing steel echoed around the room as each of them searched for an opening. Duncan was painfully aware that he was weakening faster than his opponent, and decided to try a risky feint, one that he had sometimes had success with on the training ground.
He stepped backwards, as if retreating before the attack, and let his right leg give under him, feigning a stumble and letting his sword hand go down towards the floor, looking as if he was going to use it to steady himself. As he hoped, the Samurai went for his suddenly exposed left-hand side. He ignored the descending blade, and, with a straight arm, punched his sword upwards, catching his opponent under the ribs and pushing through with a strike that pushed clean through the armour and cleaved the Samurai’s heart.
“Die, you bastard,” Duncan shouted.
The Samurai had other ideas. It stepped backwards fast and Duncan’s sword slid from its body.
There was no sign of any blood.
Duncan was struck momentarily immobile by the
incongruity, and that gave the Samurai a chance. Fast as a snake-strike the shining blade came up and headed straight for Duncan. He saw it coming, and knew he had no time to defend himself against it, no time even to move.
Geordie chose that moment to enter the fight. He threw himself forward between Duncan and the descending blade. It caught him on the left shoulder and cleaved a path through to his right hip with no more effort than if it had been cutting paper. Duncan tasted blood that was not his own in his mouth and almost gagged. The two pieces of Geordie’s body fell apart with a moist sucking noise that Duncan knew he would hear for the rest of his life.
Which may not be too far away.
He got his sword up again just in time as the Samurai stepped into a new attack, faster this time, their blades flashing and clashing. Duncan knew he was at a severe disadvantage, both in the strength and weight of his sword and in the lack of armour.
And I took the booger through the heart. Yet still he fights.
In self-defence Duncan stepped back behind the treasure chest.
The Samurai went still, blade held across his chest.
In that moment of silence Duncan realized that he could no longer hear the noise of wood splintering from the rear of the temple.
Duncan blinked.
The Samurai no longer stood in the doorway.
* * *
Learning is a phenomenon of gold and dung.
Before you understand it, it is like gold.
After you understand it, it is like dung.
I will teach them this very truth.
They will learn.
* * *
Duncan stood looking down at what was left of Geordie before a yell came from the far side of the temple.
Big Bill is in trouble.
Duncan stepped across the treasure chest and out into the weak sunlight, expecting at any moment to be attacked. But no such attack came.
He ran around the side of the building. Big Bill was struggling with the Samurai. He had stepped inside a swing of the sword and now grappled hand to hand with the armoured figure. The Samurai still held its sword, but Big Bill was a seasoned fighter, and had positioned his wrestling grip such that the sword was useless in this struggle. Getting to that position had, however, cost him dear. The big man had already taken a sore wound to his side. Blood ran in runnels down his tunic and breeches, and Big Bill’s face was ashen, as pale as mist.
Underneath and behind the struggling figures Moorhouse was trying to drag one of the treasure chests through the hole they had made in the temple wall.
“Help me,” the little man shouted.
Duncan had other priorities at that moment.
He stepped forward and raised his sword. He cut down, hard, a blow that would have taken a man’s arm off at the shoulder. He cut through leather and steel and felt the jolt run through him, momentarily deadening his sword arm.
The Samurai did not flinch. It did not even register his presence. With seemingly no effort it lifted Big Bill off his feet. It dropped an arm, seemingly leaving a weak point which Bill immediately went for. But it had been a ruse. The Samurai’s hand went straight to Bill’s throat. It gripped, hard, and Bill’s face went from white to red. He started to choke. His legs kicked, thrashing against the thick leather apron. The Samurai did not relent. The grip tightened.
Duncan lunged forward with the sword again, thrusting the point deep into the Samurai’s back.
Still it didn’t flinch.
It twisted its grip on Bill’s throat.
The big man’s neck broke with a crack that echoed around the ravine.
The Samurai dropped Big Bill’s body unceremoniously at its feet and immediately moved towards Moorhouse. The little man cowered beneath the dark bulky figure, hands raised in front of his face.
“I will give you half,” he said, wailing. “Please. Take half.”
Duncan had half a mind to let the attacker do his job. But the Captain had been right all along. Duncan had a duty, a sworn duty.
What kind of man would I be if I let him die like a trapped animal?
Even as the flashing blade came down, Duncan had stepped forward. His sword blocked the attack and Moorhouse scurried away.
Duncan heard the scrape as the Captain dragged the chest out of the temple, but by then it was too late to do anything other than fight for his life.
* * *
The Dharma is without life, because it is free of the dust of life.
It is selfless, because it is free of the dust of desire.
It is lifeless, because it is free from birth and death.
It is without personality, because it has no origin and no destiny.
There is only now.
I will serve, and I will protect.
There is nothing more.
* * *
The Samurai pressed an attack that took all Duncan’s skill to repel, the silver blade flashing and spinning in a dizzying set of thrusts and slices. Duncan had no thought of attacking—everything was defence and parry, trying to keep the blade from vital organs. He took a deep slash to his left forearm and felt blood flow in his sleeve, but there was no time to assess the extent of the wound as the Samurai came on mercilessly.
From the corner of his eye Duncan saw Moorhouse drag the chest away. He retreated along the same path, keeping himself between the attack and the little man.
“For pity’s sake man,” Duncan shouted. “Leave the chest. Head for the longboat. There is no sense in dying for a bit of gold.”
If Moorhouse heard, he paid no attention. He had already dragged the chest as far as the steps down the cliff and was trying to manoeuvre the box over the lip.
Duncan blocked a blow that was heading for his skull and succeeded in gaining a second’s respite.
“It is sheer folly,” he shouted. “You’ll never get that box down that flight alone.”
Moorhouse laughed bitterly.
“Yet I must try, for there will be no life for me without it.”
With that he pulled the chest over the lip and was gone from sight.
The Samurai pushed forward in another attack, and once more Duncan was forced to retreat. Soon he found himself backing towards the lip at the top of the staircase. He took one step down, then another. The Samurai was now high above him, raining blows down towards his head that Duncan was hard pressed to defend.
He descended as fast as he was able but quickly came up against Moorhouse and the chest.
“Let it go man,” Duncan shouted. “Or we will both be dead in seconds.”
Moorhouse didn’t reply, merely started to drag the chest faster. Duncan could not turn to watch. The Samurai came after him, the sword coming down like lightning bolts. Duncan’s whole arm was numb and his sword had been badly notched in many places, but he had no choice but to keep up the defence for as long as he was able.
The descent seemed to go on forever. Duncan took another long cut, just above the bicep in his right arm, and immediately he felt the strength start to drain from him.
“Faster!” he shouted to Moorhouse, then had to duck as the Samurai aimed a kick at his head. He stumbled, almost fell, and put his foot down to balance himself. Instead of finding a step, he found Moorhouse’s hand, stepping down hard on it. Bones broke under his foot. The little man screamed then fell away, the scream ending in a distant thud.
Duncan risked a look.
The broken body of the Captain lay some twenty feet below. The chest lay on top of him. It had landed square on his head, crushing the skull.
Duncan looked up, expecting the attack to cease and the Samurai to go still once more, but the blows still came relentlessly, even when they reached the foot of the stairs.
His retreat became frantic, barely stopping the Samurai blade an inch from his heart.
I do not have much time left.
Once again Duncan allowed his right knee to crumple and he let himself fall sideways. The Samurai went for his unprotected side and Duncan took his
chance. He thrust upward, a perfect stroke that should have disembowelled his attacker.
When he withdrew his sword it was shining and clean. The Samurai had not even slowed.
I cannot fight such a thing as this.
The next time the Samurai raised the sword Duncan did not defend. He let his own weapon fall to the ground and waited for death to come. The blow came down on his right shoulder and he heard the sword grate as it passed through his ribs.
Duncan felt strangely still and content as he crumpled to the ground.
The last thing he saw before blackness took him down and away was the Samurai reach down and remove the forgotten gold piece from his tunic pocket.
* * *
I should be dead.
Duncan came back to a semblance of thought some time later. His view was limited to two thin slits in the darkness. He tried to move but he seemed to be restricted. He felt heavy and encumbered.
It was only when he saw the three chests stacked on the red and gold plinth that he realized where he was.
And what he was.
I will serve, and I will protect.
There is nothing more.
RICKMAN’S PLASMA
He would call it ‘Soundscapes of the City,’ and it would make him his fortune, of that Rickman was certain.
How could it fail?
All it had taken was a reconfigured dream machine. Courtesy of Dreamsoft Productions, a particularly skilled burglar, and the latest software from MYTH OS, Rickman’s visions of bringing his music to the world were now that much closer to reality.
For the past forty nights he’d sampled and tweaked, taking the raw sounds that streamed into his loft apartment from the city outside. He merged them with his dream compositions and formed them into a holographic construct of sound and light and ionised gas, an ever-moving plasma bubble that hung like a giant amoeba in the centre of his room.
Samurai and Other Stories Page 2